Two bodies found Monday evening in the Riverside County portion of Joshua Tree National Park have been identified today as being a couple visiting the U.S. from the Netherlands, according to the Huffington Post. 44-year old Agustinus (Guus) Van Hove, and his girlfriend, 38-year-old Helena Nuellett, were discovered within about a mile of each other inside the park. more ›

33-year-old rock climber David Pinegar of Loomis was killed at Joshua Tree National Park on Monday when his rope snapped and he fell 150 feet, according to authorities, reports CBS Local. Pinegar was climbing with a friend near Saddle Rock off of Ryan Mountain when the accident happened, said a park spokesman more ›

So you've gone to Coachella, but why head back to Los Angeles so soon? April 17th to 25th is National Park Week, meaning entrance fees are waived. April is the park's busiest month and also a great time to check out wildflowers. “The desert is at its best for the next few weeks,” said Park Superintendent Curt Sauer. more ›

Today marks the end of a nearly 20-year battle over creating a landfill, purportedly the largest in the world, next door to Joshua Tree National Park. The Department of the Interior today announced they will not appeal a 9th Circuit Court decision to ban a public lands be exchange with a company that wanted to create the Eagle Mountain landfill, which would be filled by 20,000 tons of trash from L.A. County via train six days a week for 117 years. “Secretary [Ken] Salazar made the right decision to protect our national treasure--Joshua Tree National Park-- from a literal mountain of trash,” said Mike Cipra of the National Park Conservation Association. “Los Angeles’ future garbage disposal needs can be offset with existing landfills and increased recycling.” more ›

In a major victory for environmentalists, the 9th District Court of Appeals today sided with the National Parks Conservation Association in a fight against a landfill, which would be surrounded by Joshua Tree National Park on three sides, meant for garbage from L.A. County brought in by train. more ›

It may be Halloween, but it is also the anniversary of a major environmental bill that affected close to 9.2 million acres of California desert back in 1994. The California Desert Protection Act brought us two national parks, one national preserve, millions of acres of federal wilderness areas, as well as other special areas from Death Valley to the Mexico border. more ›

Winters can get pretty hot in the Coachella Valley, so you can guess how excruciating Joshua Tree National Park is in the summer. Visitation actually gets so low, officials close a number of campgrounds. However, as we head into cooler temperatures, park Superintendent Curt Sauer announced that campgrounds would reopen today. more ›

After a wildfire swept through a portion of Joshua Tree National Park last May, officials announced today that the Lost Horse Mine Trail has been reopened. "While the Lost Horse Mine Trail is being re-opened, park visitors are urged to remain on the trail while hiking through the area," a statement read. "The pace of germination and post-fire re-growth [of fragile desert plants] has been slowed somewhat due to the lack of summer rainfall and generally dry conditions across the park." Speaking of dry conditions, swarms of bees in search of moisture have caused the closure of the Jumbo Rocks Campground until further notice. Bees have been actively moisture in trash cans, bathrooms and off human skin. more ›

The brush fire that began Sunday afternoon and burned around 450 acres in Joshua Tree National Park was fully contained yesterday morning, although some firefighters remained on the scene to check for hotspots. “Exotic grasses and weeds change the desert’s natural ecology and its normal fire frequency. Because of this, Joshua Tree National Park has a full suppression approach to wildfires," said Park Superintendent, Curt Sauer. "Given that no firefighter or park visitor was hurt in the process, that’s about as good of an outcome as we can expect.” The following areas remain closed to public use to allow for the remaining fire operations: the Lost Horse Mine Road and trailhead, the Oyster Bar parking area, and the Hall of Horrors parking area. All other park areas and facilities are open for normal visitor use. more ›

As of 7 p.m. last night, the Lost Horse Fire in Joshua Tree National Park was 80% contained with full containment expected by 8 a.m. this morning. At 8:15 a.m., rangers at the Visitor Center could not confirm the current status of the blaze to LAist. more ›

A fire that began yesterday afternoon inside Joshua Tree National Park continues to burn today, but is expected to be knocked down by tonight. The blaze began around 4 p.m. near the Lost Horse Mine in the hills between the park’s Geology Tour Road and the Keys View Road. By 11 p.m., 150 acres had burned and had only been contained by 5%. As a precaution, 12 hikers near the Lost Horse Trail were airlifted to safety. They were never trapped, but the fire left them with a much longer, more dangerous route to leave the park, according to ranger Pam Tripp. Although the fire is burning through Joshua trees, pinyon pines, junipers and desert scrub vegetation, another concern is the endangered desert tortoise and historic Lost Horse Mind itself, which was discovered in 1893 and is currently the park's best preserved stamp miss used back then to process 9,000 pounds of gold ore. *UPDATE*: As of 10 a.m., the fire was 50% contained and expected to be at 100% by 8 a.m., Tuesday morning. more ›

As part of the stimulus bill, $750 million was committed to National Parks across the country and California gets 13% of those funds, $10 million of which that will go locally for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which extends from Runyon Canyon in Hollywood to the Pacific Ocean in Malibu (read LAist's dossier of the area here). more ›

Yesterday, an oversight hearing was held at Joshua Tree National Park, to better understand the affects of climate change on our park system and suggested remediation by witnesses in the National Parks and wilderness fields. The event was hosted by the Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), as well as Congresswoman Grace Napolitano (CA-38). The location of Joshua Tree was chosen because of the threat posed to its namesake species by a warming climate. This subcommittee was designed to conduct a series of hearings to explore the role of federal lands in combating and adapting to climate change. more ›

As mentioned last week, a congressional subcommittee tomorrow will hold a hearing on the impact of climate change on National Parks in Twentynine Palms, CA. This is something that should be important to those living in the Los Angeles region because three major national parks units--Santa Monica Mountains, Channel Islands and Joshua Tree--are so close to millions of people. more ›

A Riverside man died yesterday when he plunged 100 feet to the ground in Joshua Tree National Park. Reportedly an experienced climber, Curtis Woodrow Stark II, 67, became dehydrated while climbing The Giant Burrito, a rock formation near the Hidden Valley Nature Trail, when he fell. His equipment did not hold and his fall knocked his partner Alfred Kuok, 44, of Claremont, down too. Luckily for Kuok, his equipment held, but he suffered back pain, rib injuries, and other possible internal injuries. Two climbers nearby, who happened to be firemen, assisted Kuok and called park rangers to the scene. more ›

A bill that would have added around one million acres of land to the National Wilderness System, including 280,000 acres in California, failed to pass the House of Representatives Wednesday by two votes. Republicans felt it had too many unnecessary earmarks. But the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009 could head back to congress for another vote giving it one more chance. more ›

90 miles east of Los Angeles sits this billboard telling Mayor Villaraigosa to cut it out. But why do people far away from LA care? It's the controversial Green Path Power Project, a plan that would bring geothermal, solar, wind and other renewable energy from the Salton Sea area of Imperial Valley to Los Angeles via a new yet-to-built electrical transmission line. more ›

Over the past few years, the exotic Sahara mustard plant has been aggressively spreading across the Joshua Tree National Park, possibly threatening the desert ecosystem and leaving irreversible damage. Perhaps the most noticeable damage to a visitor is the affect to the beautiful annual wildflower blooms. more ›

Escape from the city by camping out in the great wide open of the Joshua Tree National Park. more ›

In 1987, U2 did a little guerrilla music video shoot on top of the Republic Liquor Store at 7th and Main in Downtown Los Angeles. Only announced hours before the shoot on the radio, thousands and thousands of fans poured into what many considered a bad part of town prompting the LAPD to have a little freak out and try shut down the show before anything happened. Luckily, in the name of rock n'... more ›

I’m writing this from bed, plan on returning to sleep when I’m done and will be too busy cleaning up the residue from my birthday celebration last night to post on dear ole LAist anytime soon, but...in my bleary, horizontal state, I felt moved to write while still basking in the glow of the Old Crow Medicine Show’s concert last night. It’s a miracle I made it at all, having hours before returned from... more ›

Gram Parsons left us for a better place 23 years ago. If he were still alive, he would be coming up on celebrating his 59th birthday. Gram is often referred to as the worlds first Country/Rock Star. He has maintained an incredible cult following through the years - how could he not being one of the first to discover Emmylou Harris, he played shortly with the Birds and had the ultimate rock-star notch in... more ›

Gram Rabbit Cultivation (Stinky) – They’ve got a unique sound (kind of like Calexico mixed with trip-hop) and they’re from Joshua Tree. This is their second release and they’re performing live at Tower Sunset on 4/20 at 6:00 PM and the Echo on 4/21. Listen to some tracks on MYSPACE. more ›

Lisa Teasley is a successful fiction writer living in Los Angeles. Her first book, "Glow in the Dark," won the 2002 Gold Pen Award for Best Short Story Collection and the 2002 Pacificus Literary Foundation Best Short Story Writer award for fiction. Bloomsbury USA published her first novel "Dive" in 2004. The novel is a romantic thriller set in Los Angeles and Alaska. Bloomsbury will publish her latest novel "Heat Signature" in 2006. more ›

There’s something about a long weekend—whether you take a day off of work or are mercifully granted a Monday holiday—that begs for a trip somewhere else. One of the greatest benefits of living in LA is that there are so many places to go to get away from it, and the best of them are right here in California. more ›